Biology

Physiology

Scyther resembles a primarily green, human-sized praying mantis with accents of cream coloration. It has large, blade-like forearms and a pair of cream-colored wings. Its head is reptilian rather than insect-like in shape, with three small points, and its feet possess three claws.

Gender differences

The female of the species have slightly larger abdomens.

Special abilities

Scyther's blade-like forearms have the power to slice through logs with a single blow. Scyther is also gifted with tremendous speed and is a strong flyer, but very rarely flies. It is said it could use its scythes like a ninja. Scyther is one of a small number of Pokémon still capable of evolution that are able to use Hyper Beam and Giga Impact.

Behavior

Scyther are very intelligent, but tend to be quiet and reclusive in the wild. They tend to act like lions, and if a challenger Scyther wins a battle against the leader of the Scyther swarm, the original Scyther leader will depart, and the challenger will take place as the new leader. When confronted by a Trainer, they will react very aggressively to defend themselves, but when trained, Scyther can be among the most loyal Pokémon on any Trainer's team and hate to give up.

Habitat

Scyther are often rare Pokémon that prefer an open grassland so they can live with other packs of Scyther. However, they have been known to take residence in secluded forests. Although rare, they are usually imported to live in Safari Zones and similar reserves, though populations have been recorded in Sinnoh and the Battle Zone.

Bugsy used a Scyther against Ash in Gettin' The Bugs Out. This Scyther was trained to block Fire-type attacks by using Swords Dance as a fan. Ash discovered that this defensive strategy doesn't work if a Fire-type move is used from above, which allowed his Cyndaquil to win in his Gym match.

In the Pokémon Ruby-Sapphire manga

In the TCG

In the TFG

Game data

NPC appearances

Pokémon Snap: A Scyther appears at two points on the Beach level. At the first point, the use of a Pester Ball will chase it out. (This also triggers a special Multiple Pikachu Photo opportunity.) The second point is close to the end of the Beach level.

Pokémon Stadium 2: Scyther stars in a mini-game alongside Pinsir called "Clear Cut Challenge." Each player chops a falling log for each round of the game. The score for each player is determined by how close the player is to the white line on the log. Cutting anywhere above the log will cause the player to lose points.

Scyther is blindingly fast. Its blazing speed enhances the effectiveness of the twin scythes on its forearms. This Pokémon's scythes are so effective, they can slice through thick logs in one wicked stroke.

Trivia

In the Pokémon Red and Blue beta, Scyther's prototype name was "Stryke". This is a corruption of the word "strike", which is also its romanized Japanese name.

Despite having different base stats, Scyther and its evolution, Scizor, both have a base stat total of 500. This makes Scyther the only pre-evolutionary form that has the same base stat total as its evolution.